


After Midnight

by quartzguts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Corpses, Gen, Minor Character Death, Referenced violence, Serial Killers, many murders in fact, noct commits a murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts/pseuds/quartzguts
Summary: Concerned for the prince's well being, Ignis follows him when he sneaks out of his apartment late one night.What he finds is not what he expects.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	After Midnight

It's early morning, just before dawn, one of the only times Insomnia is ever quiet. The street is nearly empty, the alley completely so, and thus there’s no one around to witness Noctis's crime.

No one, of course, but Ignis.

_I should have expected this,_ the prince thinks as blood drips down his fingers, freshly drawn from the eyes he just gouged out of that poor, innocent girl’s skull. Ignis has his hands up placatingly, is moving forward at a snail’s pace, trying not to startle him further. It doesn’t help. All Noctis can think about is the consequences of getting caught—the media circus, the trial, the inevitable guilty verdict and the rest of his life spent in prison. Or the whole affair getting quietly covered up by his father, arranged to frame Noctis as innocent, or even erase the murders completely. Both alternatives make his stomach churn. On the one hand, he deserves to be punished, to be found out for the sick, disgusting thing he is, but on the other, it would kill the people he loves to see him in prison, to find out he’s not the person they thought he was.

It’s killing him right now, to see Ignis so frightened.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, tears welling up in his eyes. He keeps his eyes on Ignis instead of the girl slumped against the wall. He’s not apologizing to her, though he should be. “I’m sorry, Iggy.”

“Noctis, give me the dagger,” Ignis says soothingly.

Noctis gives him the dagger. It doesn’t matter—he’s got an arsenal of weapons tucked away in his armiger, from rifles to blades to ordinary objects that can be used to kill—but giving up the murder weapon makes the situation seem safer. Diffused. Once Ignis sets the dagger on the ground, he ducks over to check on the girl.

She’s already dead. Noctis made sure of it; slit throat, slit wrists, eyes crushed into her skull. There are bruises on her wrists where he grabbed them. There are gashes from her nails on his arms. If everything had gone to plan, he would have already cleaned up the place, hauled her body into a container he keeps in the armiger for just that purpose, and disposed of her over the course of a week, careful to prevent anyone from tracing her death back to him.

As it is now, Ignis presses two fingers to her neck. After a moment he pushes his glasses up his nose with a shaking hand, and turns back to Noctis.

“Did she threaten you?” Ignis asks, and the dam breaks.

“She didn’t do anything,” Noctis says. “She was so sweet. I bet she’d never done anything wrong in her life. I just… I just had to. I _had to_.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Noctis knows it doesn’t, even without seeing the crease between Ignis’s brows grow deeper. “You mean you ki—did _this_ —unprovoked?”

“I had to,” Noctis repeats, desperately. “I saw her and I had to.”

Ignis glances between his bloody hands and the corpse, his eyes hard and unfeeling, like sea-glass. “Why don’t we call Cor and get this sorted out?”

Noctis’s throat dries up. “There’s more,” he says, wincing at the way Ignis’s gaze snaps back to him. “A lot more.”

“How many?”

“I… I lost count.”

“...How long?”

Noctis swallows down what little saliva remains in his mouth. “Years.”

Ignis doesn’t ask any more questions. Maybe he can’t think of anything else to ask. He gets Noctis to sit down, has him start his breathing exercises, then goes to deal with the girl. When it’s clear he’s unsure where to put her, Noctis summons the container, and Ignis hauls her in. He grimaces at the blood that gets on his shirt, then at the red stains on the concrete. Noctis’s fingers tremble as he summons his clean-up supplies. Ignis gets the ground cleaner than Noctis has ever managed in four years of practice.

Then, Ignis helps him wipe down his hands, takes him to the car, and drives him home.

They sit on the couch, legs pressed together, as the sun rises. When Noctis realizes it’s time for the morning news, he scrambles for the remote. Turns on the TV. A quick sweep of the channels reveals that last night’s girl hasn’t been reported missing yet, or at least, hasn’t caught the attention of the media. He sinks down onto the couch with a sigh.

“Are you relieved or disappointed?” Ignis asks.

“A little of both,” Noctis forces out. “Relieved because if the media doesn’t get involved, it’s easier to get away with it. Disappointed because I want…”

Ignis waits, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I want to see. Just… I want to see how much emotion I can draw out of people. I want to see how far they’ll go.”

Ignis looks like he’s about to scream. Or cry. Or both. “You enjoy seeing others in misery?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Noctis says, cringing, but, well. He’s not wrong.

Silence hangs over them, stifling the room. It’s heavy enough it feels like it could drown them, crush their lungs and make their hearts burst. Noctis picks at the skin surrounding his nails, listens to the faint droll of the day’s weather report, the ticking of the clock. Nothing moves, save the sunlight streaming further in from the window. It lights up all the horror in Noctis’s mind, the devils that scream at him constantly, the dark thoughts he doesn’t know how to control.

He jumps in place when Ignis makes a mad grab for the remote, turning up the volume on the TV. Noctis manages to catch some of the words through the ringing in his ears.

_“...young woman when missing last night. She was reported to have left her home following a domestic dispute between her parents, and was last seen heading down the road in District A, near the slums. If anyone has information about her whereabouts, please contact the police. Again, her name is—”_

Ignis turns off the TV. Noctis’s leg bounces, barely containing his anxious energy.

“We shall dispose of her quietly,” Ignis says softly. For a moment, Noctis thinks he’s hearing things, until his advisor places a hand on his shoulder. “In the future, when you feel this... urge... contact me, and I will help you clear the… the _evidence.”_

“You’re not going to turn me in?” Noctis asks hoarsely.

“Heavens, no.” Ignis pulls him in for a hug. Noctis melts into his arms, savoring the feeling of familiar hands in his hair. “I could never.”

Noctis shouldn’t let this happen. He should call Cor right now, tell him everything, and accept the consequences. He should kill someone in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, so his dad can’t cover it up. He should absolutely not let Ignis throw away his moral well-being to protect someone who isn’t worth protecting.

The problem is that Noctis can, at times, be notoriously selfish. It’s a weakness of his. He buries his face in Ignis’s shoulder and breathes deep, taking solace in the love of someone who has been at his side forever, who’ll never abandon him, no matter what he does.

They don’t have to deal with this today, or even tomorrow. It’ll be a few months until the next one. Noctis will just have to figure it out before then.

(He doesn’t, and five months later, Ignis helps him bury another body.)

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
